1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus including a chip on which an engine processor and a basic processor are independently provided and share the control of processes related to the formation of an image of given print data.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus, such as a printer or a multi function peripheral having a printing function, forms an image from print data. Particularly, the image forming apparatus processes the print data, generates image data which can be processed by the image forming apparatus, and prints the image data, thereby forming the image of the print data on a print medium.
Processes related to image formation are performed under a control of a processor provided in the image forming apparatus. The processes related to image formation include various processes such as an image data generating process, a printing process, and so on, and can be performed by slaves provided in the image forming apparatus. The slaves operate under the control of the processor.
Among components provided in the image forming apparatus, components for printing the image data are collectively referred to as an image forming engine. It is necessary to suitably control the image forming engine to print the print data properly.
Accordingly, a driving state of the image forming engine must be frequently checked. In the processor provided in a conventional image forming apparatus, periodic interrupts are generated by operating a timer, which is one of the slaves, and the driving of the image forming engine is controlled whenever the interrupt is generated.
When the periodic interrupts are generated, the processor processes the periodic interrupts before other control processes. Accordingly, if the periodic interrupts are generated frequently, an amount of processing time increases, and thus a print speed of the image forming apparatus is reduced.